


A Charming Picture

by Just_Another_Day



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Damen/Laurent - Freeform, Background Erasmus/Kallias, Drama, Dubious Consent, M/M, Slavery, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 12:17:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19062526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_Another_Day/pseuds/Just_Another_Day
Summary: "Erasmus. Would you like to do me a favour?"Shyly, Erasmus said, "This slave would be pleased to do anything the Prince asks."





	A Charming Picture

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a Tumblr request to write Damen/Erasmus. **Please note the dubious consent warning.** It's on par with what we see in Book 1, since this is a direct divergence from one of those events, but some readers might want to avoid it despite that. The title is a reference to what Vannes says when she and the others walk up on Damen and Erasmus together that night in the gardens. The scene goes AU from around that point.

It was hard to tell what was going on, with his face practically pressed to the floor in prostration. Erasmus didn't understand what any of them were saying. That wasn't an unfamiliar experience since boarding the ship bound for this place, since he understood only a few key words that were close enough to Veretian to let him translate. 

But unlike him, the Prince's slave had been able to speak in their foreign tongue to the boy who had dragged Erasmus here like a recalcitrant dog (even though Erasmus would have followed willingly if he'd known what was happening, or even had just been given a moment to regain his balance, but Erasmus couldn't exactly complain about the treatment). Even now, the other slave seemed to be following the Veretians' conversation perfectly well. Enough so that he visibly tensed up when the red-headed young man said something, despite having shown no reaction to anything else, even the sudden appearance of his master, the Prince. The red-head must have said something outrageous. He did seem like the type, from what Erasmus could pick up from how he was presenting himself.

Erasmus was quickly growing practised at trying to pick up on what was happening from contextual clues rather than words, since that was often the only means of making sure he was doing what he was supposed to and thereby avoiding punishment. From the seductive tone the red-head was addressing towards the Prince, it would seem to Erasmus that he was likely offering himself for the Prince's use. The red-headed man was clearly not a slave, for he bore no cuffs and collar, and a quick glance revealed that he was openly staring at the Prince where any self-respecting slave would have had his head bowed and eyes on the ground at the bare minimum. But for all that Erasmus didn't understand how their culture worked at all, Erasmus could only assume that he and those Erasmus had seen around the palace who dressed and acted as he did must be some Veretian near-equivalent of slaves. So even though the offer seemed awfully forward to Erasmus's sensibilities, it probably was fairly routine for them, since surely any slave (or near-slave) would want to please his prince. 

Erasmus would have assumed the Prince's slave was used to witnessing this sort of thing by now. But no. He seemed taken aback. Angry, even. Strange. 

Erasmus understood from what he'd heard and seen that this man seemed fairly untrained for a slave, but surely even he understood that the slave belonged to the master, not the other way around. So he had no cause to display disagreement or jealousy if his master wanted to avail himself of another man.

The Prince's slave apparently needn't have worried too much about being displaced from his master's bed anyway, though. The Prince said, clearly enough for Erasmus to understand, "No."

Erasmus certainly knew that word well enough to recognise it. Though where no one in Vere had paid it the slightest bit of attention any time Erasmus had sobbed the word out, the red-head – despite entirely failing to conceal his annoyance at being turned down – had little choice other than to heed the Prince when _he_ said it.

Erasmus had assumed that would be the end of it. That the Prince would take up his slave's chain and lead him away, and Erasmus would lose his opportunity to speak further with one of the few people in this place who understood and spoke his language, and who seemed at all disposed to act kindly towards him. 

But then the woman said something, and the Prince turned to look directly at Erasmus. Erasmus lowered his eyes again just a moment before he could be caught looking up. He was getting out of practice, he lamented. His form had once been so perfect that there would never have been a risk of getting caught doing something he shouldn't, but here it seemed to matter so little that Erasmus rarely bothered trying anymore. He was more likely to be punished for something (anything) else than for daring to raise his head.

"I'm informed that my slave was taking liberties with you before I arrived."

Erasmus physically startled slightly in shock. The words were spoken in Akielon, if enunciated a little clumsily and with a strange accent. The Prince spoke his language.

Erasmus suddenly wondered whether, if he could impress the Prince enough that he might consider taking Erasmus into his personal household, Erasmus might be able to serve a single master whom he could actually understand from now on rather than continuing to be passed around among men who barked orders Erasmus couldn't hope to grasp. He _had_ been being trained for a prince, once. Might he find a place with one after all, despite everything?

Erasmus knew it was foolish to hope, but he couldn't help himself. Kallias would have said that was just his nature. That he was too sweet for his own good.

As always, the thought of Kallias laughing at Erasmus's earnestness while he lazily played with Erasmus's curls during the heat of the summer afternoons when the trainers had left them to their own devices hurt more than anything physical Erasmus had been through since being shipped to Vere.

"This slave was only fixing his paint," Erasmus explained to the Prince. 

"And did he touch you at all in return?"

Erasmus shook his head emphatically. Erasmus knew better than to allow that from another slave even if he'd tried. Kallias had taught him that lesson very well. Erasmus just wished he understood _why_ he had.

The Prince's slave said something then in Veretian. He sounded unhappy. The Prince replied, his words far more rapid-fire than when he'd spoken to Erasmus. And far flatter-sounding, Erasmus couldn't help but notice.

The Prince's slave recoiled. He thrashed against his chains, and against the half-dozen guards who quickly flocked to his side. Erasmus had heard of the wild slave who'd needed to be drugged to stop him from fighting their captors, but that hadn't prepared him for seeing it with his own eyes. He seemed like an entirely different man than the one who'd softly asked Erasmus for his name just minutes ago.

Entirely ignoring his slave's outburst, the Prince addressed Erasmus in Akielon once again. "What's your name?"

"This slave is called Erasmus."

"Erasmus. Would you like to do me a favour?"

Shyly, Erasmus said, "This slave would be pleased to do anything the Prince asks."

*

"We weren't doing anything. Leave him alone," Damen demanded.

Laurent said, "You're exceedingly defensive over it, for something you claim isn't true. Perhaps Lady Vannes is right about you wanting him, hmm? And so why should I deny everyone what they want?"

The only way Laurent cared about what Damen wanted was in making sure that he couldn't possibly get it. It was Laurent's desires that would be served here. And the crowd who were crowing for a performance.

It shouldn't have surprised him, after Laurent's attempt to set Govart on him in the ring. And of course Laurent wouldn't mind hurting another slave as collateral for putting Damen in his place. Laurent had enjoyed Damen's pain well enough that Damen thought that might just be an added bonus for him. And yet Damen still hadn't been entirely prepared for it. 

Damen found himself immediately and automatically rebelling. It took half a dozen guards and the tight restriction of the chains he was tugging at to ultimately still him, and even then it was a near thing.

"Why act like you're so against it?" Laurent mocked him when Damen had been contained. "He's old enough for you, isn't he? Wasn't that all that mattered? And surely you can't have any qualms when I imagine you'd have happily fucked any number of slave boys just like him if you were back in Akielos."

"He doesn't have a choice here," said Damen. Though maybe that made it appeal to Laurent even more. After all, he'd turned down the prospect of Ancel's involvement when Ancel had been practically throwing himself at Damen to try to impress Laurent. Maybe Ancel had been a little _too_ willing for Laurent's tastes, Damen thought, sickened.

"As if that matters to you in any real way. He has at least as much choice as he would have in _your_ country," Laurent pointed out.

"I really don't mind," Erasmus said in a small voice. He immediately looked shocked at himself for speaking up uninvited. He hadn't even remembered to refer to himself properly, as if he hadn't even thought his words through before expressing them.

That was what quietened Damen's objections. If Erasmus had spoken so impulsively, it was more likely to be the truth than to be just something he'd felt obliged by circumstance to say in Laurent's defence. And if Erasmus was genuinely fine with it, then at least this situation was only half as bad as it could otherwise have been. 

It probably hadn't even occurred to Erasmus that Damen might not want to do this on his own behalf as well, not just because he was concerned for how Erasmus felt about it. 

Though Laurent was right, as much as Damen hated admitting that; Damen's lack of desire was purely down to circumstance. Damen would have happily tumbled Erasmus if they'd been in Ios, knowing he was willing. That didn't mean he wanted to do it now, knowing that Laurent wanted him to for whatever reason. But he didn't exactly seem to be being given a real choice, so he supposed that knowing Erasmus wouldn't be negatively affected by it was something at least. It made it a shade easier to overcome his otherwise violent distaste at the prospect. 

The gathering crowd was probably expecting to see Damen bend Erasmus over, just as the more 'dominant' pet would in the ring. Damen wasn't so sure that Laurent would have it play out that way. The point was surely to humiliate him, after all. Though the idea of Erasmus trying to fuck Damen instead was almost laughable. Damen couldn't imagine it.

Laurent apparently decided on a mid-point. Erasmus was instructed to take a seat on a bench, while Damen was pushed to his knees between Erasmus's parted legs.

Erasmus looked slightly disquieted by this turn of events. Surely been trained, as all _real_ slaves were, to identify power and to yield to it. Not even the Veretians could have denied that Damen exuded the exact kind of strength that Erasmus would naturally want to prostrate himself before. But Erasmus still said nothing to object of it. That wasn't a slave's place, even if he'd wanted to.

For his part, Damen nearly lashed out instinctively for a second time, because this was even more anathema than kneeling for someone like Laurent. Princes didn't subjugate themselves like this before anyone, but _certainly_ never before slaves. It went against all the cultural mores Damen had been raised with. The collar around his throat pressed at him more heavily than ever before.

He wasn't a prince here. He wasn't even equal with the lowest-born of soldiers who wouldn't have been able to hope to afford a slave for themselves. Damen was considered Erasmus's equal rather than Laurent's, and it was clear that Laurent wanted to force him to acknowledge that. With witnesses. Fighting it wasn't going to do any good at all, and was as likely as not to result in Erasmus getting hurt. Damen knew how the Veretians were. How _Laurent_ was. They would act as though Erasmus was complicit as well if Damen refused to do this. Especially if Laurent decided that Damen actually cared what happened to the young slave.

He did care. Erasmus was one of his people. Damen was responsible for him. And Damen knew that Erasmus and the other slaves would be entirely incapable of protecting themselves. Damen would have to do it for them. However he could. Even if this was part of it.

At least it would be quick, Damen supposed. He very much doubted Erasmus had ever received this particular type of pleasure, and he had probably received no gratification at all since coming to Vere, knowing the selfishness of Veretians. It shouldn't take much effort or time to bring him to climax.

Damen could also hopefully make it better on himself by pretending that the circumstances were different. It wasn't as if he hadn't done this before. Though admittedly never on his knees like this, and never with a slave, since he'd generally kept women in his household. Damen could just picture himself lying alongside a young soldier fresh out of his term at the Kingsmeet and eager to reacquaint himself with this kind of pleasure instead. That would be nothing so shameful.

It was hard to mentally take himself away to such a place, though, when Laurent seemed set on making it particularly difficult to shut out the knowledge that they were being watched, and judged.

"Not like that," Laurent snapped when Damen parted Erasmus's slave garb and ducked his head immediately down with his mouth open wide to take Erasmus in whole. 

Damen hated to give Laurent what he wanted, but he did pause in place.

"Slower," Laurent ordered. "Don't just shove it in. Honestly, don't you have any idea how to give pleasure? How pathetic."

The courtiers around him interrupted their conversation to titter with laughter.

Damen would have liked to hit something – just about anything in the vicinity other than Erasmus would have done, but Laurent in particular would have made an ideal target – to express his frustration. Now he was either going to seem like he was proving Laurent right about his supposed lack of skill by speeding through it the way he would prefer to, and would maybe risk Laurent forcing him to do it over against because he was dissatisfied with Damen's performance, or otherwise Damen was going to have to draw this out in exactly the way he'd been hoping to avoid. There was really no way of winning this game. Of course there wasn't. Not with Laurent as his apparent opponent.

Instead of engulfing Erasmus's cock, Damen simply flicked his tongue out. Even that was apparently difficult for Erasmus to handle. Above him, Erasmus audibly gasped, his head falling back. Damen pressed a hand to his hip to still him as Erasmus thrust towards Damen's mouth, seeking more.

"Who said you could use your hands?" Laurent asked. "Hold them together behind your back and keep them there until I'm done with you, unless you want to spend the entire next week with them chained that way."

Damen was going to kill him one day, he reminded himself. Surely he could be patient and put up with this until then. Though Laurent made it increasingly hard for Damen to manage that with every (completely unnecessary, thanks, Damen _really_ didn't need instruction in this) word that he spoke.

Which wasn't the only thing that the constant stream of Laurent's voice in his ear made hard, but Damen stubbornly ignored that.

Damen might almost have been charmed by Erasmus's hitching little movements under other circumstances. He enjoyed taking his lovers apart so that they couldn't entirely control themselves. But without being able to guide Erasmus and take over that control himself, it made it exponentially more difficult until Laurent finally stopped irritating Damen by barking out unnecessary orders and let Damen just take the young slave into his mouth. Though even then Damen had to be careful that Erasmus didn't end up choking him. Laurent probably would have enjoyed that immensely, but Damen wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

Damen wanted to do that to Laurent instead. He wanted to grasp Laurent's hair and set a harsh rhythm, pushing into Laurent's throat so that he couldn't even breathe or beg. He wanted to hear Laurent's voice – so cool right now – turned harsh from that kind of use.

Damen's cock throbbed. He had to clasp his hands together almost hard enough to hurt to remind himself not to bring a hand around to tend to himself.

Erasmus was apparently even more desperate, for he proved Damen right soon enough; Erasmus couldn't last long, not even with Laurent trying to prolong it to taunt Damen. Damen was able to swallow most of his release, but a little dribbled down his chin. Damen didn't wipe it away, instead leaving his hands clenched behind him. He wasn't giving Laurent an excuse to punish him. Not this time. Not after he'd already been through all this.

Gasping as he sank even further back into the bench, Erasmus appeared pink-cheeked and dazed. He looked down at Damen in awe, like Damen was some immense being who had just performed the feat of lifting the sun into the sky on his own back rather than simply bringing him to completion. Like he was half in love with Damen from just that. It wasn't entirely dissimilar to how his own slaves had sometimes looked after he'd tumbled them in the past. But they had never looked him in the eye the way Erasmus was now, since he had no idea there might be any reason not to. 

Damen wondered how much more undone Erasmus would look under other circumstances, if Damen's full attention was on his pleasure and if he had no reason to want to just get it over with and to make it into a battle of wills of sorts with someone else entirely. It was a pity that Damen would likely never find that out. Though if nothing else, Damen supposed he was glad to have given Erasmus what was clearly a pleasurable memory for him to hold onto. Damen vowed that he would ensure that this wouldn't be the last positive experience that the young man would be allowed to have.

"Stand up," Laurent ordered. He didn't expressly specify to which of them he was speaking, but the fact that the words were in Veretian gave it away. Damen rose, wincing slightly at the pain in his knees before he could catch himself. He hated showing such weakness in front of Laurent, even momentarily.

"Now show everyone how much you enjoyed getting down on your knees to service another slave. I'm sure they're interested in seeing the evidence of how much you actually like submitting."

It was obvious what he meant for Damen to do, especially when he flicked his gaze impassively downwards.

"And how would you like me to do that without using my hands?" said Damen.

"I'm sure you can figure it out."

Fine. If they were going to play it like that. It was no worse than what Laurent had required of him so far, Damen convinced himself.

Damen ordered in Akielon, "Erasmus, undo the front of my garments."

"Now, now, don't pretend you weren't on your knees for him a moment ago. Ask him nicely. And be specific."

Teeth gritted, Damen seriously considered refusing. But it was almost over, surely. And he'd come this far without rising to Laurent's bait. So he grudgingly amended, "Please, Erasmus, could you release my cock from my garments."

Erasmus, his hands still trembling slightly as he slowly came down, reached forward obediently.

"Good boy," Laurent said in Akielon.

And damn if Damen didn't react to _that_ almost as obviously as Erasmus did. The courtiers probably didn't notice, but Damen doubted Laurent had missed his shudder.

"Oh look, he really did get hard just from sucking off a slave!" Ancel called out gleefully. The others seemed equally amused that someone as massive and seemingly dominant as the Prince slave could be moved that way. Vannes speculated aloud whether he would enjoy being fucked just as much.

Damen was glad that the lighting and his darker skin would mostly hide the evidence of the heat he could feel rising in his face.

Damen couldn't even properly argue the point. Revealing that it wasn't anything to do with Erasmus or the act of kneeling for someone in general that had resulted in his arousal would mean acknowledging instead that it was all down to Laurent's involvement. And Laurent would certainly never let him live that down. 

As it was, Laurent seemed bored now that he'd proven his point, re-engaging the other courtiers in discussion as if nothing unusual had just happened. And to them, Damen supposed that was exactly the case. This had been tame by their standards.

Their discussion was broken up soon enough by Nicaise's return. Everyone else departed almost immediately at Laurent's signal. 

"Fix your clothing and wipe your face. You look like a used street whore," Laurent commented just before he left with Nicaise. 

A harsh laugh escaped Nicaise's lips, though a moment later he looked annoyed, as if he hadn't meant for Laurent to know Nicaise found him at all funny. Those two deserved each other, Damen thought.

The moment Laurent was gone, Damen released his clasped hands from each other and moved to tuck himself away.

Frowning as he brushed at Damen's chin to finally clean away the last traces of his own spend, Erasmus asked, "Doesn't the Prince want me to…" He gestured vaguely, but his meaning was obvious. He was confused that he wasn't returning the 'favour', as it were. 

"The Prince isn't interested in anything of the sort unless it's under his exacting control," Damen said bitterly.

"I see," said Erasmus, as if that made perfect sense to him. Damen didn't think he understood at all. As innocent as he was, he probably thought that Damen meant Laurent would pleasure Damen himself. As if that would ever happen. 

At least, Damen thought, he'd been left alone with Erasmus to find out more about the slaves. He'd been worried when they'd been interrupted that he'd lost his chance. He was glad to be proven wrong.

Though he refused to be grateful to Laurent for anything at all, even that. As Laurent had just proven yet again, he was hardly deserving of Damen's gratitude.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to make this as in-character as possible, but if you think I missed the mark feel free to let me know. I won't claim it was easy to write, so I wouldn't be surprised to hear it doesn't work for some.


End file.
